Rivals of Ixalan - Blog Post (3/8/18)

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Comments

  • Sirchombli
    Sirchombli Posts: 322 Mover and Shaker
    This looks like what ixalan should have been .Guess I'm glad I saved my dollars . This actually looks fun. And the discard gods seem to be smiling upon me. 
  • tfg76
    tfg76 Posts: 258 Mover and Shaker
    Finally another G/W planeswalker! AJ2 is sooo bad.
  • Machine
    Machine Posts: 857 Critical Contributor

    Seems like good stuff! I would prefer to have the charges for the PvE event start at 1 if 3 is the max just like Avacyn's Madness. 5 nodes is a lot and only 8 hours until you are maxed out is too short.

    Secondly, I prefer to have some major bug fixes first, instead of rushing Rivals. Cards that change gems to your PW's color don't work and that is a big deal (Dowsing Dagger and Conqueror's Galleon come to mind).

  • Laeuftbeidir
    Laeuftbeidir Posts: 1,841 Chairperson of the Boards
    The post is nicely written and promising, but
    - I'd rather have our questions from the last two months answered as promised
    - I hope your focus is fixing what you delivered before focusing on a new set

  • Volrak
    Volrak Posts: 732 Critical Contributor
    Most of this looks great, but please reconsider this:
    The nodes start with 2 charges and can get up to 3.
    As others have mentioned, this is totally game-destroying for people who would like to play competitively but don't have time to play a full round of nodes in the first 8-16 hours of the event.
  • miss_zoey
    miss_zoey Posts: 17 Just Dropped In
    Maybe WOTC are putting pressure on D3 to sync up with Dominaria.


    I'm intrigued by Ascend, certainly. it's a great mechanic in paper; it looks like they have sensibly pumped up the effect of it here because you don't play land cards in MTGPQ... although we may yet see a swathe of unplayable common Ascend cards which get +1/+1.

    Efficient Ascend cards like Sworthtooth will be fine finishers for control decks, provided, of course, they DO something controlly, and are not just efficient beatsticks.

    Timestream Navigator.. we'll see. Using Activate to limit the number of swaps you can get in a turn seems sensible compared to Gonti's, but in practice it'll be a bit rubbish without massive gem destruction because the gems will get stuck after a few goes (or maybe 0 goes). And we don't really need any more cards which only combo well with  Rishkar's Expertise et al.
  • UweTellkampf
    UweTellkampf Posts: 376 Mover and Shaker
    Laeuftbeidir said:
    The post is nicely written and promising, but
    - I'd rather have our questions from the last two months answered as promised
    - I hope your focus is fixing what you delivered before focusing on a new set

    I totally aggree with this sentiment. Guys, don't reproduce the same mistakes your predecessor did: Give us a bug free environment first, consolidate, don't rush stuff. Every single time when a new set came out the bugs have persisted and we moved on, creating just more mess all around. 

    Also: don't let nodes start with 2 charges. It is just wrong, and as you can see above, everyone agrees on this.  
  • Matthew
    Matthew Posts: 605 Critical Contributor
    I left this off of my original post further up the thread, but I wholeheartedly agree with the trending sentiment regarding the starting charges. Starting a 5-node event with 2 of 3 max charges on each node is a horrible idea. Most of us have lives beyond this game (although you might not believe that given the frequency with which we post here). An 8-hour window to try to fit in the first round of games is incredibly narrow, and will certainly affect the ability of people to play.

    Please, please, please reconsider before making this final.
  • khurram
    khurram Posts: 1,090 Chairperson of the Boards
    As someone who was very vocal about their disappointment in Ixalan I should say that things look very good about Rivals based solely on this blog post. I am excited again. And that swordtooth looks good. I honestly thought it was 20 Mana at first glance and still would have been okay with it.

    So bring on those elder dinos please.  :#
  • miss_zoey
    miss_zoey Posts: 17 Just Dropped In
    I would remind anyone who is positive about the early revelations of this set to consider what their reaction was to early revelations of Ixalan.
  • FindingHeart8
    FindingHeart8 Posts: 2,731 Chairperson of the Boards
    khurram said:
    As someone who was very vocal about their disappointment in Ixalan I should say that things look very good about Rivals based solely on this blog post. I am excited again. And that swordtooth looks good. I honestly thought it was 20 Mana at first glance and still would have been okay with it.

    So bring on those elder dinos please.  :#
    Yeah, Ixalan was mtg's Homelands for Octagon.  If they're not going to buff any of the cards in the set, moving on to better things is a good move as well.  We can all pretend Ixalan was a bad dream that we're now waking up from.
  • Szamsziel
    Szamsziel Posts: 463 Mover and Shaker
    There were really op cards in Ixalan...  Who am I kidding?  
    Staying on topic - I appreciate posting info so early. And pws seems to be nicely designed. 
    Good direction!
  • rafalele
    rafalele Posts: 876 Critical Contributor
    edited March 2018
    I think I am the only one here that does not like at all the very confusing and changing rules of the nodes of the new event.

    Having extra rules plus objectives could make this game to be slower. It seems to me that every match will take a lot of time.

    The rotate effects for Azor's node seem like a joke, would be any advise of which effect is active in each turn? 

    How are suppose new players to face new mechanics, new events, new rules?

    I think that the simpler is the funniest.
  • miss_zoey
    miss_zoey Posts: 17 Just Dropped In
    FindingHeart8 said:

    Yeah, Ixalan was mtg's Homelands for Octagon.
    Let's hope it wasn't Oktagon's Fallen Empires.
  • Gunmix25
    Gunmix25 Posts: 1,442 Chairperson of the Boards
    miss_zoey said:
    FindingHeart8 said:

    Yeah, Ixalan was mtg's Homelands for Octagon.
    Let's hope it wasn't Oktagon's Fallen Empires.

    good lord that takes me back .... wow
  • khurram
    khurram Posts: 1,090 Chairperson of the Boards
    rafalele said:

    I think that the simpler is the funniest.
    Yes, but its not the funnest though, is it? And thats what we want. 

    We have had more of the same for months, years even. Its time events saw some overhaul.
  • joerginger
    joerginger Posts: 198 Tile Toppler
    There are 5 nodes with 3 encounters. The nodes start with 2 charges and can get up to 3. (...)

    I think these are dreadful decisions for the players. Three nodes are certainly enough for any kind of event and beginning with 2 charges puts players under pressure at the very beginning of the event, particularly a five-node-event, which is something that should never ever happen.This event should have been two smaller events.

    While we understand that long events aren't always a good thing (...)

    This sounds like a very cynical euphemism. They are _never_ a good thing, they are the exact opposite, especially when the recent direction of the game means that all the individual matches already take much longer than they used to or should - unless the new AI kills the player by turn five after a handful of its habitual cascades.




  • DBJones
    DBJones Posts: 803 Critical Contributor
    At least they're dialing back the AI in the next update? I agree that shorter events are generally better (~battling every enemy 2-3 times for PvE is what I'd like) and nodes should always have at least 2 recharges before they max out. I do quite like Avacyn's Madness though, if the new event runs about that long and starts with 1 charge in each node that'd be a good start. Of course, how the battles actually work out to be fun/interesting or not is more important.
  • ElfNeedsFood
    ElfNeedsFood Posts: 944 Critical Contributor
    AI should be dialed back at Gold or below but Platinum needed the buff. 

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